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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27033808">portrait of the self</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/monyaka/pseuds/monyaka'>monyaka</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Kill Your Boss (Visual Novel)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Analyzing Art, Canon Compliant, Family Dynamics, Gen, Pre-Canon, making breakfast</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 17:54:02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,439</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27033808</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/monyaka/pseuds/monyaka</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>before you lose the person that’s most important to you, don’t you think you take them a little for granted? don’t you think you forget the things they told you to remember as time takes the two of you further apart?</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>portrait of the self</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>maybe this is a little disjointed and incoherent but consider: im really emotional about hailey and alex and i think about them a lot. it wounds me that we only ever see hailey in alex’s nightmares, and ive always considered that maybe she isn’t so blatantly childish in real life and that’s just kind of... how alex sees her? i like to believe that she’s strangely insightful and tries to encourage alex in her own way. i just want cute sibling dynamics? i just want them to support each other???</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p><em> alex. alex. </em> </p><p>it’s funny how even something so sweet can be taken for granted if you hear it long enough. hailey’s voice, little more than a pleasant echo, doesn’t sound so sweet to her sleep-deprived older brother. she’s laying her frail body against the empty space on the sheets, tickling his nose with the flower she always seems to be clutching in her skeletal hands.</p><p>
  <em> alex, wake up… aleeex…  </em>
</p><p>he groans, dragging one arm over his eyes. she’s blurry in his vision, and all he can think of is how shitty his tired tongue tastes. how long has he been asleep? and, more importantly, why the hell is he awake? he squints at his sister, raking a hand through tousled blond hair. “whadda fuck you want, hailey?”</p><p>“make me breakfast,” she whines, and uses her patented younger-sister charm to jab alex in the side. “please? i’m super hungry.”</p><p>the cia agent wants nothing more than to roll over and go back to sleep, to ignore the pleading eyes that he’s never able to say no to. he wants to say no — he wants to toss her aside and selfishly cling to the inviting warmth of his covers. to catch up on the sleep he sorely needs. but he’s an older brother first and a person second, isn’t he? a pawn, whether he’s aria’s or hailey’s. so just like always, alex begrudgingly throws the covers aside and suppresses a yawn.</p><p>“yay!” she’s cheering prematurely, childlike and sweet. she smells like the flowers she grows, a pungent floral scent that alex thinks smells like mothballs and old ladies. but hailey’s youthful face, her smile — that’s all he can see before she’s enveloping him in the strongest hug she can muster. “bacon and eggs, okay?”</p><p>“just eggs,” he shoots back, but he can’t help but sigh, smile, run a gentle hand over the crown of her head. “eggs and toast.”</p><p>and in this moment, he’s just on the cusp of realizing how precious his little sister is. but, of course, death is the final realization. he’s not going to realize that hailey’s the last thread of his sanity, because he won’t appreciate the sound of her voice until he can't hear it anymore. because he’ll hate the scent of the white lilies she grows around the apartment until he sees them on her grave. and that’s why he doesn’t know to hug her back or appreciate her before she’s gone, because the fact is he doesn’t know. he doesn’t know that she’s going to leave him without a trace except for a faded headstone and a bloodstain in an old apartment.</p><p>hailey hovers around him like an excited kid as he makes the eggs. she’s always full of energy, excitement, and life — in stark contrast to her sarcastic sibling, she never seems to tire of anything except for being cooped up. he slides the eggs onto a plate, hands her a fork and taps her nose with a flippant finger. “your eggs, princess.”</p><p>“what about you?” she asks it every day, like alex is going to stop fueling himself with coffee and cigarettes if she’s just persistent enough. but they’ve got a routine, so he just takes the pack out of his pocket and shakes it at her with the cigarette between his lips. obviously, he doesn’t smoke inside, and he goes on a brisk jog after he does — all things that hopefully prevent hailey from breathing in anything she shouldn’t.</p><p>but this time, she catches his arm. “wait. don’t.”</p><p>alex sighs in irritation, but he’s never really mad. of course he’s not mad. her fingers are so small and thin against his clothes, and he thinks for a second, just one, about how small his fingers used to be when he clung to the fabric of his mom’s sleeve. and that always stops him in his tracks, makes him look like a kicked puppy as he pries the cig out of his lips and regards the young woman before him. “what?”</p><p>“can i show you something?”</p><p>maybe the expression on his face is a little too harsh, because she starts to wring the stem of her lily, an anxious tic she’s employed ever since she started growing the flowers. she likes the smell, he remembers, likes the way it makes her feel.</p><p><em> like i’m in this huge meadow, with no one around for miles and miles. just you and me and mom and dad. and we’re all so, </em> so <em> happy…  </em></p><p>he hadn’t had the heart to tell her then why mom and dad were on their way home without him. he doesn’t have the heart even still to do anything but scramble to fix things as he watches the girl’s frown deepen. “yeah, yeah. i want to see it, c’mon.”</p><p>she makes her way, ethereal, to a canvas covered with a blanket. aria’s been buying her non-toxic paints, happy to give her something to do so she won’t try to break out of the apartment. “it’s a portrait of you.”</p><p>“i didn’t pose for a — ”</p><p>but then hailey pulls the sheet off, and it’s… it’s not human. it’s a mess of muted colours and dark lines. his first thought is: <em> hailey doesn’t paint like this. this isn’t my sister. this isn’t me. </em> but, hah — isn’t that just his attempt to deflect? because the more he looks at it, the more it looks like him.</p><p>a mess.</p><p>she notes carefully how he’s staring at the canvas, and her words are a whisper. she has no way of knowing how he’ll miss her insightful words, no way of knowing how he’ll long for both her laugh and this serious note in her voice. “what do you see?”</p><p>a mess.</p><p>miller clicks his tongue and considers it. it looks like a rushing river with its grand sweeping movements. it looks like a fire with its wispy lines. it looks like the depths of an uninviting ocean. but he doesn’t know what had been running through her mind when she designed it, doesn’t know what she sees when she looks at him. this painting doesn’t have hair, eyes, hands — nothing concrete. </p><p>“…chaos.” when he gestures to a long line of pale blue, his pointer finger brushes slightly against the paint, and he quickly draws it back with a heart that’s beating too quickly. “always moving, never resting.” </p><p>“stable?” </p><p>“god, no.”</p><p>she laughs at that, but he’s not smiling. he’s always wanted to be the kind of guy people can rely on, the kind of guy who’s more than a roaring river and the impermanence of flame. his mind goes too quick, thinking of all the times he hadn’t been there for her — isn’t that a daunting tally? — and wondering if she holds it against him.</p><p>“wanna know what i see?” hailey’s voice, so childishly sweet, rouses alex from his thoughts before he can anchor himself to the miry depths of guilt. she transfers her flower to one hand, takes a bracing little sniff before she’s gesturing to the canvas. “blue, white, and grey — like a day that looks stormy until you remember the sun is shining so brightly behind the clouds. all these grand movements, a big cloak on your shoulders that you cover me with when i’m cold. feathery tips, like the wings of a bird about to take flight. and… here, where the wisps spiral up to the top…? that’s your hope, alex. it’s your hope, and it’s mine. okay?”</p><p>“my… hope?” since when has he had something like that? his hope doesn’t look like a wisp of smoke curling up to the heavens. his hope looks like stark black-and-white checkerboards, thick black hair, the name of agent and the smell of gunpowder. all so he can pay off a debt. all so he can have a family again. his hope is nothing but an empty promise after a broken life.</p><p>“it’s to get out of here.” like she’s reading his mind. “our hope is a life in that… that meadow, where we can watch stupid movies and be a family again. so you better not forget. this is what you look like. this is who you are.”</p><p>a mess. a mess of muted colours, self-doubt and crippling loyalty. a mess of good and bad, the brother hailey wants but doesn’t deserve. someone who kills himself for the happy ending. someone who breathes in the smoke from the cigarette and the smoke from the gun’s muzzle. and all of it so he can save hailey’s life. that’s what hailey wants him to remember.</p><p>so why, then? why did he forget who he was?</p>
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